GOOD PRACTICE FRAMEWORK

The Good Practice Framework for handling complaints and academic appeals

The Good Practice Framework: Handling Complaints and Academic Appeals is a guide to handling complaints and academic appeals in higher education in England and Wales. It sets out overriding principles and operational guidance to support providers in areas including timeframes, progression between informal, formal and review stages, and record-keeping.

The Framework was prepared by a steering group and follows consultation with providers, students’ unions and higher education and complaints handling organisations.

The Framework was updated in December 2016 to include some practical guidance on handling complaints in smaller higher education providers, to give additional suggestions on supporting students, and to take account of changes in legislation.

The core principles of the Framework and the operational detail remain unchanged.

The Good Practice Framework: Handling Complaints and Academic Appeals is a guide to handling complaints and academic appeals in higher education in England and Wales.

Supporting disabled students

This section of the Good Practice Framework outlines good practice guidance for providers to consider when supporting disabled students. The section was prepared by the OIA in consultation with the Good Practice Framework Steering Group and the OIA's Disability Experts Panel. A draft was published for consultation in March 2017 and submissions were received from providers, student representative bodies, other higher education bodies and stakeholders, and interest groups.

The guidance is drawn from the our broad experience of handling complaints, with additional input from the wide range of consultees. It includes guidance on how providers can remove obstacles to learning, and on supporting students before and during their studies, as well as on what to do when things go wrong. Its scope is therefore wider than previous sections of the Good Practice Framework which have focused on handling complaints and academic appeals. This is in keeping with our charitable purpose which includes the active promotion of good practice in preventing and handling complaints.

The guidance will inform the way that we consider complaints relating to disability issues from the 2018/19 academic year.

This section of the Good Practice Framework outlines good practice guidance for providers to consider when supporting disabled students.

Disciplinary Procedures

This section of the Good Practice Framework gives good practice guidance for providers in designing disciplinary procedures and in handling individual cases. It was prepared by the OIA in consultation with the Good Practice Framework Steering Group.

The draft guidance was published for consultation in June 2018 and submissions were received from providers, student representative bodies, and other higher education bodies, stakeholders and interest groups. The final version incorporates many of the very helpful suggestions we received.

It covers:

academic disciplinary procedures, for dealing with academic misconduct such as plagiarism, contract cheating, cheating in examinations or formal assessments, falsifying data, breaching research or ethics policies, and collusion; and

non-academic disciplinary procedures, for dealing with misconduct such as antisocial, abusive or threatening behaviour, sexual misconduct, violence, harassment, hate crimes, behaviour likely to bring the provider into disrepute, damage to property or abuse of facilities, causing a health or safety concern, and other behaviour that might also be a criminal offence.

The guidance will inform the way that the OIA considers complaints relating to disciplinary matters from the 2019/20 academic year.

This section of the Good Practice Framework outlines good practice guidance for providers to consider during disciplinary procedures.

Delivering learning opportunities with others

This section of the Good Practice Framework outlines additional good practice guidance for providers to consider when handling complaints and academic appeals in the context of delivering learning opportunities in higher education with others.

This section was prepared by the OIA in consultation with the Good Practice Framework Steering Group. A draft was published for consultation in December 2016 and submissions were received from member providers, student representative bodies and other higher education sector bodies.

The guidance will inform the way the OIA considers complaints and academic appeals from students who are studying on courses which are provided through a collaborative arrangement involving more than one provider or awarding organisation from the 2018/19 academic year.

This section of the Good Practice Framework outlines additional guidance for providers to consider when handling complaints and academic appeals in the context of delivering learning opportunities in higher education with others.